Happy Birthday Baldovinetti

Art by Delilah

Alesso Baldovinetti (14 October 1425 – 29 August 1499) was an Italian early Renaissance painter.

Today is the birthday of the renaissance painter Alesso Baldovinetti, if you are not familar with his painting here is a link to some of the images of his oil paintings

His favourite method in wall-painting was to lay in his compositions in fresco and finish them a secco with a mixture of yolk of egg and liquid varnish.


At the end of the roman empire and up to the Renaissance period (15th century), this ancient technique was lost and replaced by oil paint and/or tempera. In Italy and Greece, olive oil was used to prepare pigment mixtures but the drying time was excessively long and tedious in the case of figures. This drawback led a German monk, Theophilus, in the 12th century to warn against paint recipes including olive oil (Schoedula Diversarum Artium). It was reported that Aetius Amidenus, a medical writer in the 5th century, mentioned the use of a drying oil as a varnish on paintings. Similarly, it seems that perilla oil was used in Japan in painting after addition of lead in the 8th century. In the 14th century, Cennino Cennini presented a painting procedure integrating tempera painting covered by light oily layers. read more


We set in our central heated home searching the internet for art supplies that are shipped right to our door and still we have excuses for not painting not having enough time. Sit down and really think about what the life of an artist was like in the 1400's. How hard it would be to even see art, to travel, to get supplies, and sell your work.

I am so lucky to be living in a time when I do not have to spend 100% of my daily just try to find enough to eat.

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